Jo Shapcott – Her Book 2 – Life
One of the things I love about Shapcott’s poetry is its passionate and joyful embrace of the world.
A poem reflecting on this in general terms is “Life”, which you can find here http://ijcooper.hostoi.com/NewPoems/Shapcott_Life.htm
The speaker of the poem describes three lives, as bat, frog and iguana or hearing, touch and tongue. I want to comment a bit on the last of these.
When a poet writes about tongue and mouth we tend to think of them as organs of expression, but Shapcott’s poem presents the tongue as a means of discovery, a way of receiving the world:
My life as … Continue Reading